Motor vehicles are typically provided with a variety of storage locations including glove boxes, seat back and side door pockets, consoles located either in the headliner or between the seats, and storage bins located in the trunk or rear cargo area of the vehicle. While many of these storage locations increase the total amount of storage space available to the occupants of the vehicle, there is an increasing demand for more storage.
It is known in the prior art to provide a drawer attached to the bottom of a seat assembly that may be moved relative to the floor beneath the seat to facilitate loading and unloading. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,920 to Amner, discloses the use of a tray mounted on rails beneath a seat assembly to enable the storage tray to slide forward from beneath the seat for accessibility. However, one drawback of such an arrangement is that the tray typically extends underneath substantially the entire length of the seat. This utilization of the space beneath the seat interferes with the ability to provide additional functionality within such seat assemblies such as, for example, seat occupant sensing capability.